Panel Round Two

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Mo Rocca, Peter Grosz and Kyrie O'Connor. And here again is your host, at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

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SAGAL: Thank you so much. In just a minute, Carl honors the success of Jeremy Lin, with a special listener Linrick challenge.

MO ROCCA: Oh, Linrick. Linrick, right?

PETER GROSZ: No, it's chow-linge that's what the pun is.

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SAGAL: If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Peter, Mitt Romney has a problem. He's having a hard time selling himself to the conservative GOP base. So last Friday, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he called himself what?

GROSZ: What was the term he used?

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GROSZ: Severely conservative.

SAGAL: Yes, he called himself severely conservative.

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ROCCA: Critically conservative.

GROSZ: Yeah, exactly. I'm dangerously conservative.

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SAGAL: In a ten minute speech, he used the word conservative two dozen times, and he even went off his prepared script to call himself severely conservative.

SAGAL: No. No, there's no effective treatment, but we can make his life comfortable.

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GROSZ: That would be even worse for the Romneys because it'd be like, but he was severely liberal just a few years ago.

SAGAL: I know. What happened?

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GROSZ: What happened?

ROCCA: Romneycare used to cover severe conservatism.

SAGAL: It did.

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SAGAL: There was a co-pay.

GROSZ: But only in Massachusetts.

SAGAL: Yeah.

GROSZ: Not nationally.

KYRIE O'CONNOR: In Massachusetts, they called it wicked conservative.

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ROCCA: Wicked conservative.

SAGAL: Kyrie?

O'CONNOR: Yes.

SAGAL: Kyrie, this week North Korea marked the 70th birthday of former leader Kim Jung Il, despite the fact that he died in December. According to state media reports, North Korea is still in mourning, including whom?

O'CONNOR: Well, the whole country.

SAGAL: I'll give you a hint. Well, you know what they say, do they weep in the woods?

O'CONNOR: The bears.

SAGAL: The bears are sad.

O'CONNOR: The bears are sad. Oh no.

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ROCCA: The football team?

SAGAL: Yes.

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SAGAL: It's a family of bears. They were, according to state media, spotted by the side of the road weeping and lamenting the dear leader's passing.

O'CONNOR: That's actually kind of cute.

SAGAL: To quote North Korean media, "the bears, believed to be a mother and cubs, were staying in the road, crying woefully." This was in addition to the flock of magpies seen swarming the dear leader's statue at the time of his death. All these woodland creatures are mourning him. He wasn't a crazed dictator, he was Snow White.

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GROSZ: It must be fun to work for North Korean State News. Like they probably have like the world's best poets there.

SAGAL: Right.

GROSZ: It's like find some interesting way to say that we're all mourning. Like, all right, there are bears weeping at the side of the woods and the moon is crying gold.

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GROSZ: Like, all the things they say about him are so mellifluous.

ROCCA: They need to work with Pixar. This stuff needs to be animated.

GROSZ: Right.

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ROCCA: It's amazing.

SAGAL: Now, North Korea is being ruled, since Kim Jong Il's death by Kim Jung Un. That is Kim Jong Il's 29-year-old son, who a year ago was a slacker, watching the NBA on TV.

ROCCA: The Korean Bob's Big Boy.

SAGAL: Exactly.

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SAGAL: And then he was instantly made first a four-star general and now he is the leader of the world's last Stalinist dictatorship. You realize what this is? This is Adam Sandler's next movie.

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ROCCA: As a youngest sibling, I do, actually. I am kind of happy for him.

SAGAL: Really?

ROCCA: Because he's the youngest of three.

SAGAL: Yeah, and they reached over his older two brothers and they picked him.

ROCCA: Yeah.

SAGAL: And he has apparently no qualifications to be a Stalinist dictator.

ROCCA: Right.

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SAGAL: You would be a better Stalinist dictator.

ROCCA: I think I probably would.

GROSZ: Did they explain how they knew the bears were crying specifically for that? Did they have a little sign up that was like in case anybody's wondering, we're crying because of the dear leader's passing?

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SAGAL: Maybe...

GROSZ: Well then I don't believe the story.

SAGAL: There you are.

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GROSZ: You had me until there was no sign.

ROCCA: Do they have honey pots?

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SAGAL: During their little honey - do they have picnic baskets, is that what you're saying?

ROCCA: Actually, I'm curious, do bears actually - what is the relationship between bears and honey? I forgot.

SAGAL: They like to eat it.

ROCCA: Oh.

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SAGAL: Traditionally. I believe that's true.

GROSZ: It's their same relationship to fish.

SAGAL: Yeah.

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GROSZ: And people.

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ROCCA: Maybe they went and they brought like urns of honey to the body of Kim Jong Il.

SAGAL: It was like a sacrifice.

ROCCA: Then laid them there. Yeah.

SAGAL: It's possible.

GROSZ: That's more believable than the sign.

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SAGAL: Mo, as you know, Oprah Winfrey quit her hit daily talk show and started her own cable network, which no one is watching.

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SAGAL: She came up with a solution though, what?

ROCCA: She did what apparently is verboten in TV land, which is she tweeted asking people with cable with Nielsen boxes to watch her show, to watch her network.

SAGAL: Yes. yes. Basically, she begged people to watch.

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SAGAL: Especially Nielsen viewers. Nielsen viewers, of course, are those people whose television viewing habits become the Nielsen ratings, very important. She tweeted, "everyone who can, please turn to my channel, especially if you have a Nielsen box." And then the Nielsen Company complained. You're not allowed to do that. So she had to try something else.

So she had to try something else. She instead tweeted "tune in to my channel and I'll recommend your book."

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SAGAL: And then, "hey, you know what my favorite thing is you watching me."

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SAGAL: And then finally she was like "tune into my channel or Stedman gets it."

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ROCCA: Why doesn't she just run North Korea?

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ROCCA: No, seriously.

SAGAL: Why do you say?

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ROCCA: These Oprah - Oprah is amazing in the right situation. I'd love to see her give North Korea a makeover and just to fix it.